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Saturday, August 22, 2015

Today is the start of our cruise but first we had to get to the ship and board. That was quite an effort but the staff had it all organized right down to the last detail. We arrived at the docks and as you can see by the hundreds of suitcases on trolleys, there was a lot of luggage to load.

As soon as be stepped off the shuttle, there was a porter waiting to take our luggage and in the space of about two minutes to get off and get our luggage unloaded from the shuttle, he told us he could help and it would be nice if we gave him a tip as he did not work for Carnival Cruises.

Just in case we didn't hear the first 5 times, he kept telling us until the tip was in his hand. As quick as a wink, he had the luggage on his cart and was off giving the same speech to another set of passengers.

Then it was joining a long line, any long line of non-priority passengers (we had to pay extra if we wanted priority boarding but we didn't so we joined the long line).

Shuffle, stop, shuffle, stop, shuffle, stop... well, you get the picture.... until we made it to the check-in counter and we were still not on the ship at this point.

After check-in and another 5 minutes of stairs, walkways, halls and ramps, we were finally in the ship. We went to the Lido deck for lunch - along with hundreds of other hungry passengers all wanting the same thing.

We found a table for four where we could see out to the mainland while eating. There are a huge number of skyscrapers on the skyline in Miami.

We all settled on chicken fingers and fries as it seemed the easiest thing to get. The inside seating was completely filled so we sat on a sheltered part of the deck which was extremely hot because of the plexiglass surrounding the seating area combined with a stationary ship. I was sweating just sitting there.

A nice cold ice-cream helped cool things off but you can't tell that I had one too because I am always the one taking the pictures. I am going to have to get myself a selfie stick just to prove that I was on vacation too.

After the ice-cream, it was making a request to the DJ. He did a special shout-out to the two birthday kids and they were tickled that their names were announced for everyone to hear.

The kids looked a bit subdued but I couldn't tell if it was because they were a bit overwhelmed with all the newness of everything or they were missing their parents. I hoped by that time that it was the former otherwise it'll be a long 6 days!

I pointed out the shipping yard and cranes and a few other things that I thought might be of interest but they did not look impressed. I think it's also because they have not spent a great deal of time with each other without their siblings being present too.

Okay, this could be a retirement condo for me in a few years.

I could see the kids eyeing the water slides. I hope they'll be impressed enough to try it tomorrow.

A game of mini-golf...

An afternoon nap...

A bit of tv...

Checking out the cabin...

Then dinner and two chocolate desserts each! Things are definitely looking up!

A movie on the open deck on a giant large screen tv . Maybe this cruise might be fun after all!!!

Tomorrow it's room service bright and early - like 7:30 am. What will it be? Croissants? Cereal? Fruit and yogurt? How about all? Yes. Good plan. One of each...

Friday, August 21, 2015

It's the night before Caribbean cruise and all is well in the Sukhan house with my two 8 year-old grandbabies Sabreena and Ronin. Just after the picture below was taken, someone with pink striped shirt who shall remain nameless, wanted to go home because she missed her parents and was sure she was not going to sleep. I told her that she would be fine and reminded her that she slept over at my home lots of times but she reminded me that her sister was always with her and she was never away from her parents for a long time.

I managed to convince her that she would be fine and would have a great time on the cruise - especially since we were heading for Miami first and after all, she's always wanted to go to Miami.

Soon it was 4:45 this morning and we had to rise and shine - okay - rise for me but it always takes me an hour or two to shine (code for "don't speak to me for the first hour after I am awake).

Ronin and Breen with an RCMP officer at the Winnipeg airport

Entertaining each other

It didn't take long to get comfortable in the plane and continue the morning beauty sleep.

At least for one of the babes... The other was concentrating on her movie.

Arrival in Atlanta and Breen was excited to take the skytrain to the next terminal.

Sky view of Miami

Too tired to swim - but it would have been nice

After a long day of travel - 3 flights, we finally settled in for a good night's sleep. Tomorrow is going to be an exciting start to our Caribbean vacation.